The Shadows I Hide

Chapter 15: Secrets

"Hey Midoriya, congrats on sneaking up on Todoroki like that the other day. That takes some serious skill," the green-haired boy seemed a little flustered at the praise. He really didn't seem to be accustomed to being complimented at all. "It wasn't really that great, and besides after that first strike Todoroki mopped the floor with me," his response to Sero's complement was modest as ever. "Still pretty damn impressive though," said the boy before waving goodbye and heading his separate way. "Hey Deku, what was that about?" asked the boys brown-haired companion. "I asked Todoroki to help me with my stealth training several days ago by letting me try to sneak up on him while he had his guard up," "And you managed to?" asked the brunette with amazement clear on her face. "Why didn't you tell me about what happened?" Izuku looked at her a little bit guiltily. "Well, it didn't seem all that important to me. I didn't feel it was worth mentioning...," "What are you talking about of course it was worth mentioning!" shouted the brunette before he could finish his sentence. "We haven't been able to spend a lot of time together recently because we're both so busy so when we do get the opportunity to talk I expect you to tell me everything!" "Okay, okay," said Deku. Uraraka narrowed her eyes at him a moment longer. "Good. So, is there anything else you feel might be important to say now?" "Ummmm. Well, I guess my fire control training is going well, I can go a lot longer with my fire without getting a headache, although I learned that a better way to use my quirk is to shoot flames in small rapid bursts rather than just a long drawn out stream," "Well, that's cool. It's good that you're getting a better hold on that quirk. One thing I'm still not sure about though is why your quirk took so long to manifest?" "I don't understand it any better than you do," the boy said thoughtfully. "Although maybe it's because I didn't know how to consciously activate it yet. It's just really difficult to try and explain I guess," His companion nodded in agreement from across the table. "I feel like everyone's been getting stronger and finding out new things about themselves,""I totally agree, it's pretty awesome to see," his companion smiled."Yeah, it's really cool that we've all been able to find our own mistakes and see them from a different angle to improve them." Those words seemed to strike something in Deku. His brow narrowed in concentration for some unknown reason to Uraraka. A moment of silence elapsed, Deku was lost in thought for a good moment when he noticed Uraraka glancing at him from the corner of his eye. He turned to look at her but she looked away quickly her cheeks taking on a slightly deeper shade of pink. "Is something wrong?" asked Izuku quizzically. "No, it's nothing," said Uraraka. "It's just that face you always make when you're thinking," Izuku raised his brow. That was an odd thing to say. Now that he thought about it though Uraraka had been starting to act a little strange around him recently. She always stayed a respectable distance from him at all times, and he was sure this wasn't the only time she'd been glancing at him that way. Just as he was putting his previous thoughts aside for later and was about to ask her about her recent behaviors he was cut off before he could begin by Uraraka as she began to speak again. "Hey Deku?" the words came out slowly and cautiously as if she were afraid of saying them. "Yeah, what is it?" he asked. The color of Uraraka's cheeks deepened again to a fiery red and her eyes seemed to be trying to look at anything other than him. She eventually seemed to make a decision about where to look and cast her eyes down onto the table between them. "You know that the school dance is coming up in a week or two right?" he was a little surprised by the question. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting her to say but this was not it. "Yeah, what about it?" Uraraka made some kind of small whimper noise and buried her face in her hands. She was beginning to freak him out. Before he could say anything though Uraraka's words came out in a rush. "Would you maybe want to go to the dance with me?" Now that was a question Izuku had definitely not been prepared for. He felt his own cheeks redden and he suddenly felt very awkward there. "Wha-" "As friends of course!" blurted Uraraka at the last second. "I mean, we're really good friends so I thought that maybe we could go together to have fun at the dance you know," Izuku felt something at that moment. Of course, she had meant as friends. What else would hse have been saying, what had he thought she had been saying? Did he feel a weight pressing down on his shoulders a bit, was that disappointment? No point in worrying about it, why would he be disappointed at all anyways? "Yeah, sure," he said, his words coming out a little strange as he said them through the desire to just disappear. Uraraka's face hinted at relief, "Great! Well, I should get going, I've got a ton of work to do bye!" with that she ran off to her room quite quickly. Izuku now found himself alone in the common room. With nothing else to do, he stopped repressing the idea that had been formulating in his head since Uraraka had mentioned finding each other mistakes. He followed Uraraka's example and rushed to his room as fast as he could. Once he reached it and looked around to make sure no one might be watching he removed the demon book from where he had hidden it behind his desk and carefully opened the pages. He looked at each one briefly before moving on to the next. He had practically memorized all the information that this book had to offer and certain things hadn't seemed quite eight to him. Something he had noticed early on was that the notes placed throughout the book there were imperfections. Certain words were occasionally misspelled. Originally he had thought nothing of it after all everyone misspelled from time to time, but something about this wasn't right. He had noticed a word spelled correctly multiple times throughout the book, yet misspelled once in a certain place, and once Uraraka had voiced her thought it had given him an idea. He located the word he had been looking for. It read: "afraid" spelled a-f-f-r-a-i-d, only, he knew that afraid was spelled a-f-r-a-i-d, with only one f, not two. He was certain that the author of these mysterious notes would have known. The demeanor of their notes had suggested someone diligent and organized. He began searching the book until he found another misspelled word. This time the one he found carried and extra d. Little by little he tracked down the misspelled words and gathered their extra letters together. He grabbed a pencil and began to write down all the additional letters he found in the order that they appeared. It took him a good twenty minutes before he finished his task but when he finally did he had himself the message that the mysterious person had hidden inside his notes. He read the message, then read it again. What did it mean? Upon the paper was written. The doorway lies at the place where we were first touched by the demons.